


American Kids

by ArsenicInYourPudding



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, annie/eloise au, foster care!au, rich kid!au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-28 01:44:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2714321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArsenicInYourPudding/pseuds/ArsenicInYourPudding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Percy is a street-smart foster kid, Jason is a rich, bored, lonely kid, Poseidon sees Percy get hit by a car, and the Peculiarity of Events appears to create a family out of thin air. </p><p>Or, the Annie/Eloise au crossover that you never knew you didn't really want.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In progress, available scene-by-scene at talesfromthesockdrawer.tumblr.com
> 
> Yeah. I don't know either.

Percy didn’t know why everyone was making such a fuss about this. The car was just pulling out of a parking garage, it wasn’t even going that fast. He felt fine. Or, you know, as fine as he ever felt. _Something_ was usually bothering him, his wrist or his knee or his lungs, but hey. That’s poverty for you.

 

The man crouching on the sidewalk in front of him was saying something. Percy blinked and focused on the well-trimmed goatee and the clear, warm green eyes staring at him, trying to check back into what he was saying. “...hone number?” When Percy just stared at him, the man frowned and shook his head, standing up and offering his hand to help Percy up off the edge of the granite windowsill he was sitting on. “Yeah, okay. Kym should be pulling the car around any minute now, we’re taking you to the hospital. I think you have a concussion.”

 

“No,” Percy managed, jerking away from the man’s grip. Pain flared up his side, and he sucked in a shallow gasp. “No hospitals. I’m fine.” He took another step back, and his knee buckled.

 

The man caught him as he lost his balance, his hands warm and broad through the thin fabric of Percy’s battered sweatshirt. “Okay, okay. Take it easy. Do you know your parents’ phone number?” When Percy didn’t respond, the man ducked a little to meet his eye, his face contorted with worry. “Can you not remember?”

 

Percy gritted his teeth, and muttered, “Don’t have any,” as unintelligibly as he could manage. It wasn’t a thing he liked admitting, especially not to strange adults with very nice suits peeking out from underneath overcoats left open. A stiff breeze careened down the block, and Percy grimaced and tried not to suppress a shiver.

 

He shrugged his overcoat off and draped it around Percy’s shoulders. The long hem swatted gently against the middle of Percy’s calves, swamping him in warm wool. Percy curled into it, trying to maintain a stubbornly ungrateful attitude. As soon as this rich asshole figured out that Percy wasn’t going to be appropriately grateful, he’d leave him alone. That’s how adults worked.

 

“Don’t have any,” the man repeated. Percy cringed away from him, and the man was distracted by a shiny black sedan pulling up to the curb. A woman in a pretty sea green sweater slid out of the driver’s seat and moved around the front of the car toward them. “Kym, I know I said you could leave at five today,” he started apologetically, “but I think he’s got a concussion, do you mind terribly driving us home? I’m going to call Dr. Iaso and see if she’ll meet us there.”

 

Kym frowned. “Sir, you have a meeting with Athena at the hotel in ten minutes, you’re already running late.”

 

“So call Athena and reschedule,” he said, ushering Percy toward the back seat of the car. “The woman has two kids of her own, she’ll understand. If you need to leave, I can drive us.”

 

“No, I’ll drive,” Kym sighed, sliding back behind the wheel. “Would you like me to call his parents while we’re in the car?”

 

Percy scooted all the way over and settled resentfully into the back seat, burrowing in the coat still around his shoulders. All of a sudden he was warm and comfortable, and the only course of action his body could commit to seemed to be taking a nap in the back of some rich stranger’s car. “Son,” the man said, shaking his shoulder gently after closing the door and clicking his own seatbelt. Distantly, Percy could feel the car pull out into city traffic. “Stay awake for me, please. I would rather not explain to your caseworker why you’ve slipped into a coma from a concussion.”

 

“I don’t have a concussion,” Percy insisted, annoyed. “Why do you care, anyway?”

 

He cracked one eye open in time to see the man frown thoughtfully. “If someone got hit by a car right in front of you, you’d make sure they were okay, wouldn’t you?”

 

“No,” Percy muttered decisively, leaning his head against the window. “I got places to be. Who even _are_ you, anyway.”

 

The man offered a strained little smile and held his hand out in the space between them. “Of course, where are my manners. I’m Poseidon. You are...?”

 

Percy stared at the hand - tanned, well-manicured, wide palm and strong fingers - and glanced up at Poseidon’s face before hesitantly peeking his own dirty, scuffed hand out of the coat and shaking it. “Percy.”

 

“Percy,” the man repeated, smiling as he removed his hand and leaned back. “Is that short for anything?”

 

“Hell if I know,” Percy sighed, cuddling back into the coat. “Probably, I guess. Everyone just calls me Percy. Or _runt_.”

 

“Runt, huh,” Poseidon said with a sympathetic chuckle. “I think I’ll just stick with Percy, if it’s all the same to you.” Percy glanced back at him and watched him pull his phone from the inner pocket of his jacket. “Do you mind if I make a phone call?”

 

Percy shrugged and cuddled in against the door. His ribs hurt, his head hurt, and he was pretty sure his latest foster mom, “Auntie Em” was going to be plenty pissed that she had to pay an ER bill. Maybe the system would cover it. Who knew. Percy didn’t want to deal with it.

 

“Athena, my dear? Yes, I’m _so_ sorry about how last minute this is, I’m afraid I’m just not going to be able to make it. ...As a matter of fact, I was on my way to the hotel and watched a boy get hit by a car, and I’m currently in the process of making sure he doesn’t have a concussion. Is that a good enough excuse for you? ...Fine, just do whatever you think is best, you know I’m not picky. I trust your judgement. ...Of _course_ I do, when have I ever-- ...Okay, that was one time, you need to learn to let things go. Just send the final decisions to Kym, she’ll write the checks for everything. ...Yes. Absolutely. Whatever you like, I don’t _care_. ...Mm. Thank you, dear.” Poseidon hung up, and sighed heavily. “Jesus christ, what a harpy,” he breathed, and Percy couldn’t help snickering.

 

* * *

 

“Straight to voicemail again,” Kym said quietly, leaning over Poseidon’s shoulder as he rolled an empty glass between his palms on the polished white granite counter of the island. “I’ve left two messages, I think trying to call again might be a little excessive.”

 

“Of course,” Poseidon murmured back with a tired smile. “Thank you, I didn’t mean to keep you so late.”

 

“You’re lucky my date doesn’t mind being kept waiting,” Kym teased. She patted his shoulder and moved to grab her coat off the back of a dining room chair. “I left your number on the voicemail so if she calls back, it’ll go directly to you. Do you need anything else before I leave?”

 

“No, I think we’ll be fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 

Kym’s heels clicked across the wide expanse of tile floor between the kitchen and the doorway. “Oh, excuse me,” Poseidon heard her say, muffled by distance and a wall between them, and looked up in time to see Dr. Iaso shepherd Percy into the kitchen.

 

“Good news or bad news,” she asked easily, helping Percy ease into the chair next to Poseidon before moving around it to face both of them from the other side of the island.

 

Poseidon cast a glance at Percy. “What do you think? Bad news first?”

 

Percy nodded slowly, looking like he wanted nothing more than to put his head down and sleep. “Bad news it is, then,” Dr. Iaso said briskly, reaching over to pour herself a scotch from tray in the center of the counter.

 

“By all means,” Poseidon muttered with a small laugh, holding his glass out for her to fill.

 

Dr. Iaso took a sip and set her glass down. “So, bad news. A couple bruised, maybe cracked, ribs, nothing too terrible I don’t think, but it’s hard to tell exactly what it looks like without X-rays. A very, very minor concussion, and a bunch of other old stuff that’s probably not life-threatening. The good news is, you’re not gonna slip into a coma and die if you fall asleep, and your ribs probably aren’t going to puncture a lung. You will live to fight another day, my friend.”

 

“Yaaay,” Percy mumbled sarcastically, looking less than enthused.

 

Dr. Iaso reached out to ruffle his hair and redirected her attention to Poseidon. “Any luck with the caseworker?”

 

Poseidon shook his head, glancing at Percy. “We left a couple messages, but she wasn’t answering.”

 

“Mm. Awesome. Well, my recommendation would be that Percy here takes it easy for a while, and in the meantime I’ve got a night class over at Columbia so if you could pass that along when you get a hold of her.” Iaso threw back the rest of her scotch and set the glass down as Poseidon stood up to walk her out. “Percy, honey, be good to yourself for a few days, okay? Drink water, you’re dehydrated and that’s not doing you any favors.”

 

Percy looked up and gave her a _yeah, right_ smile. “Thanks, Dr. Iaso,” he muttered, easing out of his own chair. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

 

She dug in her coat pocket for a second and handed over a business card. “If you start feeling worse - trouble breathing, sudden stiffness, dizziness, anything - you call me, alright?” She waited for Percy to obediently tuck the business card into the pocket of his hoodie before turning back to Poseidon. “Thanks for calling me, I don’t get to see you nearly enough,” she said warmly, drawing him into a tight hug.

 

“Oh, thank _you_ for making a house call this late on a Tuesday night.” Poseidon walked her out into the entryway. Dr. Iaso waited until they were out of earshot of Percy and tugged him down closer to her, her face shifting from its normal easy smile to a stern, worried frown.

 

“Poseidon, I don’t know what you’re getting into, but I will tell you one thing, that boy is _not_ healthy, he’s malnourished as _hell_ and I’m pretty sure he’s got some kind of tendon damage on his left knee that is clearly not being treated.”

 

Poseidon frowned, straightening. “I’ll...look into it. Thank you.”

 

“Be careful, okay? The foster system’s a mess and this close to the start of your campaign, I’m not sure something like this wouldn’t just be a huge distraction for you.”

 

“Let me worry about that,” Poseidon said evenly, guiding her to the front door and reaching for the handle. “Thanks again. We should do lunch sometime.”

 

Dr. Iaso shrugged her coat on and shot him a wry smile. “Sweetheart, if you think you owe me anything less than a steak dinner, I can give you the number of a couple great psychiatrists.”

 

Poseidon laughed and leaned down to kiss her cheek. “We’ll make it happen. Drive safe.”

 

“Always.”

 

The door clicked shut behind her, and Poseidon turned around to find Percy watching him from the doorway into the dining room. “Hey, Percy,” he said with what felt like an awkward smile.

 

“Y’know, if you point me toward the subway station, I can get home by myself,” Percy muttered with a small frown. He was slumped against the wall and the way he was holding himself made him look even smaller than he was, and for a brief second, Dr. Iaso’s words about malnutrition and the foster system bounced around in Poseidon’s head.

 

“Look, it’s pitch black outside, and _freezing_ , and even if you did have a good coat with you, I couldn’t just let you wander out into New York alone at night.”

 

“I do it all the time,” Percy argued, a flash of irritation overtaking his otherwise exhausted expression. “I can handle myself.”

 

Poseidon raised his hands in surrender. “I don’t doubt it, you seem like a smart kid,” he soothed, and reached out to shepherd Percy through the entryway and into the living room. “But regardless, _I_ wouldn’t feel right about it. So just, for my sake, let’s get you settled on the couch and wait for your caseworker to call me back?”

 

Percy didn’t object out loud, even as he shied away from Poseidon’s grasp and limped around to the couch. “You hungry,” Poseidon asked, for lack of any natural segue into the question.

 

Percy shrugged. “I’m fine,” he muttered, sinking into the dark leather with his arms tucked around his ribcage.

 

Poseidon chose to ignore him in favor of satisfying his urge to feed the boy on the couch. “I’ve got some pretty good pasta I can heat up, a lasagna in the freezer, I make pretty good pancakes - what sounds good?”  
  


Percy shrugged again, looking vaguely frustrated. “I don’t know, pasta, I guess?”

 

“Pasta it is. You’re not allergic to anything, are you?” Poseidon waited for Percy to shake his head before ambling back into the kitchen. “Remotes are in the drawer,” he called over his shoulder. “Netflix should be logged in if you want to find something to watch.” He pulled his phone out to check for missed calls as he made for the refrigerator and frowned at the screen. What kind of caseworker left one of her kids hanging after getting hit by a car?

 

* * *

 

Percy had learned to sleep lightly - with as much shuffling around as he did, between “behavioral reassignments” and “we think he’ll be happier somewhere else” meetings that generally meant _he’s too old, give us a baby who won’t cause trouble_ , it seemed like he was never in one place longer than eight months. He’d figured out pretty quickly that getting comfortable was pointless, and the higher his guard stayed, the less prone people were to messing with him.

 

So when he woke to voices down the hall, it wasn’t that they were especially loud or agitated, it was just that they were _there_. Percy squinted at the room around him and rolled onto his side underneath a thick throw blanket. A stab of pain jolted through his ribs, and he rolled back with a small hiss, laying still long enough for the ache to subside before sitting up as gently as possible.

 

The bedroom felt like an astronomically expensive hotel room - nothing felt personal, but the furniture was classy and obsessively clean. Percy’s hands fussed with the hem of the blanket over his legs. The last thing he remembered was the couch in Poseidon’s living room, watching How It’s Made on the Xfinity setup. Something about jelly beans or cheese making, maybe.

 

A knock on the door startled Percy out of his wary assessment of the situation, and he folded back the throw blanket and crawled off the huge mattress, padding barefoot across the hardwood floor to the door. He pulled it open a little and peeked out to find Poseidon standing in the hallway, bedhead and pajama pants a near polar opposite from the polished businessman he’d been yesterday. “Yeah,” Percy asked, opening the door wider.

 

Poseidon smiled, and Percy couldn’t help feeling this would be a lot more awkward if either of them were fully awake. “How’d you sleep?”

 

Percy shuffled from one bare foot to the other. He was only wearing his boxers and a borrowed, enormous t-shirt that he vaguely remembered Poseidon handing him last night, and without the warmth of the throw blanket the room was oddly chilly. He shrugged and wrapped his arms around his ribs. “Okay, I guess. What time is it?”

 

“A little after seven,” Poseidon said, making an aborted little gesture in the direction of the rest of the penthouse. “Your, uh. Your caseworker’s here, and your clothes are in the dryer down the hall. And I’m making pancakes, if you want any.”

 

Distantly, Percy registered “caseworker” and “pancakes”, and he nodded absently, stepping out into the hallway. “Uh, yeah. I’ll be out in a second.”

 

Poseidon nodded slowly, hovered for another awkward second before shuffling back toward the kitchen. Percy hunched his shoulders and wandered in the direction he thought he remembered the laundry room being, yawning and blinking at the unfamiliar layout. The dryer door was open, and Percy shuffled through the motions of pulling on his jeans, his own t-shirt, and his sweatshirt, stuffing his socks into the pocket of his hoodie and wandering back down the hall toward the living room.

 

Lupa’s voice reached him before he rounded the corner into the living room. “ _No_ ,” she was insisting, ostensibly into her cell phone, “I am _not_ granting _any_ reporter access to these kids! I’ve told you this _ten times_ , you are not to allow _anyone_ access to them, even after I manage to rehouse them. They are not going to be-- _Absolutely not_ , pendejo, get your head out of your ass--” She glanced up in time to see Percy shuffle out of the hallway, and cleared her throat. “I have to go. If you need me, find someone else to hold your hand and tell you what _no reporters_ means.” Lupa hung up and shoved her phone into the pocket of her blazer, giving Percy a smile that didn’t exactly reach her eyes. “Morning, kiddo.”

 

Percy approached warily - she always struck him as someone who was one dumb remark away from physical violence, even moreso with the dressing-down he’d just heard her deliver. “What’s going on?”

 

She sighed and patted the couch next to her. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come get you earlier, I was at the hospital with a couple of the other kids from Auntie Em’s.”

 

Percy lowered himself to the couch and waited quietly, watching her carefully. Lupa sighed and

angled herself to face him. “Something’s...happened, with Auntie Em. She’s under investigation - Piper called me last night, we had to take Nico to the ER. He’s going to be fine, but you kids are going to have to move again.” Lupa had the grace to attempt to sound apologetic - mostly, she just sounded exhausted.

 

Poseidon emerged from the kitchen, carrying three plates loaded with pancakes. “Here we go,” he said, settling all three on the coffee table. “What’s going on?”

 

“There’s a situation with Percy’s current foster mom that Family Services is trying to sort out right now,” Lupa said, her eyes strained. “In the meantime, we’re trying to rehouse the four children she was caring for. It’s probably a blessing that Percy wasn’t present for what happened last night, all things considered. Thank you so much for watching him.”

 

“Absolutely,” Poseidon said, looking between the two on the opposite couch with concern. “Does Percy have some place to go in the meantime? I mean, I’m not familiar with the system, but doesn’t he need somewhere to be while the paperwork goes through?”

 

Lupa sighed, picking up her own plate of pancakes and settling back into the couch. “Another problem we’ll have to sort out,” she allowed wearily.

 

“I’m not going back to the farm,” Percy muttered resentfully toward his own plate.

 

“The farm,” Poseidon asked.

 

“A group home outside the city,” Lupa grimaced. “Percy had a...rough couple weeks in between his last couple placements.”

 

Percy grumbled something unintelligible under his breath and shoved an angry bite of pancakes into his mouth.

 

Poseidon frowned. “Well, I’m not sure how possible this is, but Percy’s welcome to my guest room for a while if it helps.”

 

“Oh, I don’t think--”

 

“Seriously,” Percy said, his head snapping up. Generally, adults got a maximum of 5 hours with him before they reached the “you’re only here because the state says you have to stay here” stage, and yet, Poseidon seemed to be willingly offering to spend more time with him?

 

“Yeah, if it’s legal. What would the logistics be?”

 

Lupa glanced around at the living room, frowning thoughtfully. “Do you have drugs, prescription or otherwise, that a minor could potentially get into?” Poseidon shook his head. “Do you have a lock on any liquor cabinets or wine cellars in the house?” Another shake of the head, and Poseidon raised his eyebrows at Percy. “I’m pretty sure we can rule out things like toxic mold, and we can probably trust Percy to not wander off the balcony at night, can we?”

 

“M’ not _stupid_ ,” Percy muttered indignantly.

 

Lupa reached for her briefcase and rifled around for a stapled packet of forms. “Consider this the most hilariously minimal residential inspection in the history of the New York State Department of Social Services, please initial where indicated on pages 2 and 5, and sign and date the bottom of page 8.”

 

Poseidon laughed, taking the packet and ballpoint pen she held out with a stunned little smile. “Alright then,” he said, hunching over the coffee table and leaving a swirling signature on each of the lines indicated.

 

“I can send someone over with Percy’s things, or you can go pack everything up yourself, I just have to make sure the cops watching the house know you’re coming.”

 

Percy glanced at Poseidon, who offered an _it’s up to you_ nod before handing the packet back to Lupa. “I’ll go pack my own stuff up. If that’s cool.”

 

“Sure. I’ll let them know to expect you.”

 

“I have an appointment at eleven, I’ll drive him over sometime around two? Would that work?”

 

“Sure, whenever you have time. I’ll be in touch when his placement is finalized.” Lupa took another bite of her pancakes, chewing thoughtfully. “And Percy, I’ll let you know about school, you’ve only got another week left of the semester. Is there anything else you need from me?”

 

Percy shook his head - that was usually code for _I’m going to leave now_ , not an actual inquiry as to his personal needs. “I’m good,” he affirmed. “Um. Wait. Are, um, are Piper and Nico and Hazel okay?”

 

“Yeah, they’re fine. Piper and Hazel are at the hospital with Nico and a couple police officers. Would you like me to have them call you?”

 

Percy glanced at Poseidon, who reached for the packet and pen Lupa had set on the coffee table between them and scribbled a phone number on the back underneath the staple. “Anytime they want to call, that’s my personal number.”

 

“Thank you, that’s very kind of you,” Lupa said, before casting a pointed glance at Percy.

 

“Thanks,” he murmured shyly. Manners were a big thing with Lupa, even under circumstances like these.

 

Lupa set her plate on the coffee table and filed the forms away in her briefcase. “Well. I should be getting back to the hospital. Some reporter got a hold of the _Foster Mom Poisons Children With Neurotoxin_ headline and now I have _that_ fire to deal with. I’ll be in touch about future arrangements, thank you _so_ much for opening your home.”

 

“Sure, it was nice having someone else around last night,” Poseidon said, standing to see her out. “Please, keep us updated.”

 

Percy settled back into the couch, as small as he could make himself, and watched Poseidon walk Lupa to the door, wondering if, at any moment, she’d turn around and change her mind.

 


	2. Chapter 2

“Uh, turn right up here. Yeah.” Percy pointed to a narrow street between a liquor store and a boarded up storefront, leaning against his seatbelt.

Poseidon’s eyebrows jumped up as he pulled onto the crumbling one-way. He hadn’t been under any illusions that Percy lived in any especially nice part of town, between the foster system investigation and Percy’s own generally skittish and self-reliant nature, but this seemed like a dangerous place to house wards of the state, as under-funded and over-extended as the system was. “You know your way around pretty well,” Poseidon noted instead, glancing at Percy settling back into the passenger seat.

“Yeah, I guess,” Percy muttered. “It’s easier to remember when you’re walking. Go one more street and it’s the second building on the left.”

Poseidon did as instructed, even if the directions became irrelevant when two cop cars parked outside a cramped, dirty duplex came into view. He pulled up behind one cruiser and turned the engine off. “This it,” he confirmed.

“This is it,” Percy said wearily, unbuckling his seatbelt. “You should get one of the cops to watch your car. There’s a chop shop three blocks up - Charlie likes German-made, and he knows all the drug dealers’ license plates and yours isn’t one of them.”

“Good to know,” Poseidon chuckled uneasily, sliding his keys into his pocket as he closed his car door.

“Can I help you,” an officer said from the small concrete porch of the duplex. Percy stumbled a half-step back and shied away behind Poseidon. The cop leaned a little and squinted at him. “Percy?”

“Yeah,” Percy muttered, crossing his arms. “I need my stuff.”

The officer shrugged and hopped over a chalk drawing on the bottom step, smudged and discolored from the recent dirty snow. “You must be Poseidon, then. Lupa said you’d be coming by.” He reached over to shake Poseidon’s hand. “I’ll keep an eye on your car, Officer Galloway is with a couple of crime scene techs on the lower level. Just make sure he knows you’re in there and when you leave.”

“Got it, thank you,” Poseidon said, reaching out one hand to shepherd Percy toward the door. Percy shuffled up the steps, tugging on the ripped screen door and shouldering the peeling green door behind it open. Poseidon followed a few paces behind and slid his coat off as he let the door close behind him. “Officer Galloway?”

A younger officer poked his head out of the kitchen. “Yeah? Oh, hey. You must be Percy. How’s it goin’, kiddo?” He didn’t wait for a reply, ducking back into the kitchen. “Hey, Sam - you get what you needed out of the kids’ stuff?” A disembodied voice replied to the affirmative, and Officer Galloway returned. “Yeah, you’re all good. You know the drill, right,” he asked, raising his eyebrows at Percy with something like sympathy.

Percy just shrugged and shuffled up the stairs, his worn-out sneakers squeaking quietly on the scuffed linoleum. “Just let me know when you’re done,” Officer Galloway told Poseidon before resuming his post in the kitchen.

Poseidon followed Percy up the stairs and down the cramped hallway to a bedroom with a set of bunk beds that filled at least half the room, and a pair of rickety card tables that served apparently as desks on the other side, leaving a sliver of floor to pass through. “So this is your room, huh?”

“Not much, but it’s home,” Percy quipped under his breath, looking up at Poseidon with a dry, humorless little smile. “I won’t take long.”

“I’m in no hurry,” Poseidon shrugged, lowering himself to sit on the lower bunk. A rumpled felt blanket was wadded up against the wall, its blue fake-satin edging frayed with age. A child’s drawing of two figures holding hands, one half the height of the other, was held to the wall with a dirty piece of clear tape over the thin pillow, a series of cheap stickers folded down over the edges where it had been pinned up and taken down over and over again. “Is this yours?”

Percy glanced up from where he was shoving the contents of a dresser drawer into a backpack held together with star-print duct tape. “Uh, no, that’s Nico’s. Him and his sister.” Percy thrust his chin up toward the top bunk. “All my stuff’s up there.”

Poseidon nodded. “Is Nico the boy in the hospital?”

“I, uh. Yeah.” Percy ducked his head again over the backpack, and in the silence of the house Poseidon heard him draw in a ragged breath. He pushed the drawer closed with his hip and moved to haul himself up the side of the bunk bed. Poseidon saw him hesitate, weighing his options, and stood up.

“Let me,” Poseidon said, and reached over the side of the top bunk.

“Everything but the blanket and pillow is mine,” Percy said quietly. Poseidon handed down a small, battered composition notebook, a deck of cards, and a pair of photographs from under the pillow. “Thanks,” he said, turning to tuck them in the front pocket of his backpack.

“That’s all you have,” Poseidon asked skeptically, eyeing the backpack on top of the dresser.

Percy shrugged. “Gotta stay portable. You never know when they’re going to move you again.”

For a brief second, the unfairness of Percy’s exhausted practicality seemed like the most important problem in the world. Poseidon blinked the thought away and nodded. “Reasonable,” he said. He glanced back at the corner of the drawing he could see from his vantage point at the opposite end of the bunk beds, frowned thoughtfully, and turned back to Percy. “If they’ll let us, do you want to see about visiting Nico sometime soon?”

Percy’s head jerked up, eyebrows arching over wide green eyes. “You... You don’t have to do that, really.”

Poseidon shrugged. “Truth be told, I can probably use it as an excuse to get out of a stockholder briefing I _really_ don’t want to go to. I’ll call Lupa about it, how about?”

“That’d be... Good, I-- Thanks,” Percy mumbled, and even through the stoic disinterest he could see the faintest traces of gratitude and relief. Poseidon smiled and reached around for the backpack.

“Sure thing. If you’re done in here?”

“Yeah,” Percy said, casting one last look at the bedroom. He moved for the door, paused, and turned suddenly back toward the dresser. “Um. Can you help me with something?”

Poseidon set the backpack down on the floor. “Sure, what do you need?”

“Can you, um. This is really dumb. Can you move this like, four inches forward?” Percy fidgeted as Poseidon shot him a bemused look but shuffled the piece of furniture aside anyway, and knelt to grab a small action figure from the space behind it. It was a tiny man in dark robes and a helmet, covered with dust. Percy wiped most of it away with his thumb, staring pensively at the little figurine. “Nico plays this dumb game called Mythomagic, and I got mad at him a couple weeks ago and stuffed his favorite figure behind the dresser. He’s only like, 8, and he’s skinny as hell, so he couldn’t get to it, but he didn’t even know where it was. He thought he’d lost it at school or something, he was really upset.” Percy chewed on his lower lip. “It was really mean. I... I spent all morning thinking about it.”

Poseidon shouldered the backpack again with a gentle smile. “Well. You can apologize to him when we go see him, how’s that?”

Percy nodded, but didn’t say anything else - not leading the way limping down the stairs, not when Officer Galloway ruffled his hair and wished him better luck at his next placement, not when they emerged into the bright winter sunlight and passed the first officer watching Poseidon’s car from the porch. Briefly, Percy turned as Poseidon was opening the driver side door and squinted at the house, one hand held up to shield his eyes. He sighed and shuffled around to the passenger side, sliding in and buckling his seatbelt without a word as Poseidon tossed his backpack into the back seat and started the engine.

“Good riddance,” he muttered resentfully as they pulled away, and Poseidon couldn’t help agreeing with him. 

-x-x-x-

Percy was flipping through channels from the couch - with his limited experience with non-cable television, he wasn’t familiar with a lot of the show titles, so he was kind of just winging it. The leather of the couch was cold through a hole in his sock, not enough to be irritating, but the tactile sensation was interesting enough to keep rubbing the ball of his foot against the arm of the chair until the leather warmed up.

“Hey, Percy?”

Poseidon poked his head into the living room as Percy arched his back to look upside down at him. “I totally forgot, there’s this stupid little thing I have to be at tomorrow night - just an hour or two, shouldn’t be too terrible. Would you mind coming with me? I told Kym she could have the night off, and I don’t feel comfortable leaving you here by yourself.”

_Aaaand there it is_ , Percy thought, a bitter sort of relief welling up in his chest. At least they were being honest about where they stood with each other, now. “I’m not gonna like, steal your stuff and run off,” he grumbled indignantly, flopping back to the couch and resuming his channel surfing.

“What? _Oh_ , oh no, that wasn’t what I meant at all,” Poseidon insisted, walking around the couch to take a hesitant seat on the coffee table. “No, I’m not worried about that. I know you’re a good kid, Percy. You wouldn’t do that.”

Percy scoffed and refused to look at him, staring intently at the TV. In his peripheral vision, he saw Poseidon hesitate before reaching out and settling his palm on Percy’s shoulder.

“The reason I don’t feel comfortable leaving you here alone is... You got hit by a _car_ yesterday. And I know you _say_ you feel fine, but on the off chance that you start really feeling that, I don’t want you to be here with no one around to help. Okay? That’s what I’m worried about.”

Percy hunched his shoulders in a jerky shrug. “Okay, _fine_ , that’s fair,” he muttered after an expectant silence.

“Do you mind coming with me, then,” Poseidon asked. “I’ll be sure to cut it short, it’ll only be like, two hours on the outside.”

Eyebrows raised, Percy rolled his head to give Poseidon a look. “Gee, I’d hate to see what _drawing things out_ looks like for you.”

Poseidon chuckled and dropped his head. “Yeah, I know. It’s a-- Well. It’s a fundraiser the wife of a friend of mine is hosting, and ordinarily I’d just write a check and send my regards, but my publicist - Athena, she’s actually the person I blew off my appointment with when I met you - she made some big promises about me being there just to spite me and now I can’t get out of it. Believe me, I have tried.”

Percy cracked a smile. “She sounds mean. I like her already.”

“Ooh, _ouch_ , kiddo,” Poseidon chuckled. “She’s got a daughter just about your age, you know. Annabeth lives with her dad but if she’s ever in town, I bet you two’d get along well.”

Percy pulled a face. “Are arranged marriages like, just an impulse for rich people, or do you have to like, take a class or something?”

Poseidon laughed, loud and surprised. Underneath the guarded, quiet shell, Percy was unexpectedly quick-witted, and more free with his smart remarks the more comfortable he got. “Alright, alright. Point taken.”

In the space of a second, Percy went from relatively comfortable and good-humored to skittish and uneasy, his shoulders creeping up toward his ears as he sat up and pulled his knees up to his chest. “It’s not gonna be like, a formal thing, is it? I only have like, two pairs of jeans, and one of them’s ripped, I’m pretty sure.”

“Mm. Yeah, that’s gonna be something to work out. I bet Kym can find something for you if we give her your sizes, she loves going shopping.”

If anything, that only seemed to make Percy more uncomfortable. He shrunk back against the back of the couch and fidgeted with the sleeve of his hoodie. Poseidon studied him for a moment and leaned forward. “I don’t mind, you know,” he said gently. “I’m happy to. Everybody needs at least one good suit.”

Percy nodded absently. Something was obviously still gnawing at him, but Poseidon wasn’t sure it was his place to pry. He stood, ruffling Percy’s hair again as he passed the couch headed back toward his study.

He grabbed his cell phone off the desk and hit Kym’s speed dial. “Hey, I need you to do something for me before you come in tomorrow. If I give you Percy’s clothing sizes, can you pick a few things out for me?”

“Sure thing,” she said. “What do you want?”

“A suit, for starters. He’s coming with me to the fundraiser at the Olympus tomorrow night, just for a few hours. I don’t want him alone if he needs something, and I told you that you could have the night off.”

“That you did,” Kym said, a faint trace of a smile in her voice. “And I love it when you remember giving me the night off. So, a suit. Specifics? Three piece, patterned, got a preference?”

“Just basic, black, nothing flashy. Don’t worry about tailoring.”

“What’s his favorite color?”

Poseidon kicked his bare feet up on his desk and frowned. “Why does that matter?”

“ _Ties_ , stupid. I want to know what color tie to get him. You know what? Just-- Okay, have him ready to be out the door at 8 tomorrow, I’ll just take him shopping with me.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, he’s already skittish enough,” Poseidon said warily.

“Relax, I will take great pains to not give him sticker shock. You said he’s got like, three t-shirts and a pair of jeans to his name, right? He needs new stuff. If he vanishes back into the system in a week, at least we can send him off with a minimized chance of freezing to death in a New York winter. And I want him to pick what he likes.”

Poseidon rolled to his feet and sauntered back to the study door. “I see your point,” he sighed. He returned to the living room to find Percy had settled on the second Captain America movie. “Hey, Percy?”

“Yeah?”

“Kym wants to talk to you,” Poseidon said, handing the cell phone over the back of the couch. As he handed the phone over, he could hear Kym’s laughingly indignant _Hey!_ through the speakers, and smiled as he returned to the study, listening to Percy’s bewildered answers to her questions as he left.


	3. Chapter 3

Kym pulled on a glass door the general dimensions of a pencil, letting a draft of warm air out onto the blisteringly cold sidewalk. “After you,” she said with a bright smile, and Percy shuffled hesitantly into the boutique.

“First things first, a suit for tonight, and then we’re going to go look at other stuff because Poseidon gave me the high-limit expense card for today and goddamnit, I’m going to _use it_ ,” she grinned at Percy, who was looking around with the same awe and terror one might feel looking around at an alien palace. He met her eye, and his expression practically screamed _I don’t know what I’m doing here._ Her smile softened, and she tucked him in a quick, reassuring side hug. “Just follow directions and let me handle everything,” she said quietly, as a man with a tape measure slung around his neck approached from the depths of the store.

“Kym,” he said with a cool smile that didn’t make it all the way across his face. He eyed Percy like he was a particularly interesting species of insect and crossed his arms, the tape measure’s ends crinkling. “And who’s this?”

“This is Percy, Poseidon’s looking after him for a while.” Those seemed to be the magic words, because his smile warmed a bit and he unfolded his arms to shake Percy’s hand. “Percy,” Kym said, looking pleased, “this is Eros.”

“Nice to meet you,” Eros said, turning to walk back through the store. “So what can I help you with, _Kymopoleia?”_

Percy turned to raise an eyebrow at her with a mischievous grin. “Really? I was thinking like, Kimberly or something.”

Kym groaned good naturedly. “Yeah, Mom was a classics major, and kind of a _nut_ , which is why I go by _Kym_. What’s Percy short for, _Percival_?”

He shrugged. “I have no idea, everyone just calls me Percy. It’s probably on my birth certificate or something, not that I’ve bothered to look.”

Kym chuckled and refocused on Eros. “We need a suit for Percy. Just something simple, off the rack with maybe the hems taken in a little. Nothing custom.”

Eros pouted in mock-hurt. “Spoil my fun, why don’t you,” he grinned at her.

“We need it for tonight,” Kym insisted. “So yeah, we skip the spinning rims for now.”

“Bossy, bossy,” he teased, rifling through a rack of jackets in dark tones from every color of the rainbow.

“ _Black_ ,” Kym said pointedly, raising an eyebrow when Eros hovered a second too long on a jacket in a nearly-black blue-green. “Just _basic_ , stupid.”

He grinned at her. “I’m teasing, you know that. C’mere, Percy. Yep, up onto this box real quick.”

Percy stepped up hesitantly, holding his arms out when instructed and watching with only the vaguest discomfort as Eros took his measurements. “ _Damn,_ you’re skinny,” Eros remarked, venturing off toward another rack along the exposed brick wall. Kym cleared her throat loudly and shot him a look when he turned back toward her.

Kym rolled her eyes at Percy. “Just because he’s one of the best tailors in Manhattan,” she said quietly as Eros consulted the numbers he’d scribbled on the inside of his wrist, “he thinks that somehow exempts him from things like _manners_. Don’t pay any attention to him.”

“Good to know,” Percy mumbled back, tugging restlessly at his sweatshirt sleeve.

Eros came back carrying one suit over each arm, and handed one to Kym to hold up as Percy hopped down from the box. Kym could see Percy playing what appeared to be a high-stakes game of _spot the difference_ in his head, from the way his shoulders tensed and his eyes went a little wide - they looked identical, except to someone who’d been purchasing custom suits their entire working life. Kym took the one from Eros’s hand and passed it to Percy, along with a sky blue button-down from the shelf behind her. “Try this on real quick,” she said with a reassuring smile. “Dressing room’s through that door behind you.”

Percy took the suit, ducked his head, and vanished behind the door. Kym waited until the lock clicked behind him before turning and smacking Eros in the chest. “What is _wrong_ with you?”

“ _Jesus_ , what?”

“For _ten minutes_ , can you _not_ be your usual obnoxious self?”

“What are you _talking_ about,” Eros demanded, rubbing at where she’d hit him.

She rolled her eyes. “He’s a _foster kid_ , Eros. He’s so far out of his depth right now, and _you’re not helping!_ ”

Eros shrugged. “Kymmie, it is not my fault your boss decided to start taking in strays and saddled you with ‘em.”

She huffed. “That’s _not_ what I meant. A little common decency and empathy wouldn’t _kill_ you, Eros.”

The dressing room door creaked open before Eros could open his mouth and dig his hole any deeper, and Percy shuffled out, tugging anxiously at the too-long sleeves. Kym beamed. “Look at _you_ ,” she said eagerly, helping Percy hop up onto the box again and turn to face the mirror. “You clean up good, look at that.”

Eros grabbed a box of pins off a nearby shelf and took one of Percy’s hands, eyeing the shoulder seams critically for a second. “Alright, so we take in the shoulders a little, hem the pants an inch or two, yeah, this’ll work. Hold still or I’ll stick you.”

Kym fished for her phone as Eros set about pinning the suit back to the appropriate proportions. _Suit down, bunch of other stuff to go. Eros sends his love_ , she texted Poseidon, before finding the checklist she’d started laying in bed this morning. She tapped _suit_ on the screen to cross it off, and studied the rest of the items: 

  * Shirts
  * Jeans - at least 2
  * NEW SHOES
  * Socks, etc.
  * Coat
  * Lunch



Kym studied the last item for a second, trying to plan their attack for the rest of the day. She’d taken Percy to get breakfast at the coffeeshop down the street from Poseidon’s building, but that had been almost two hours, a cross-town cab ride, and a stressful suit fitting ago, and it might be in both their interests to shuffle around the plan she’d had for the day. “Hey, Percy,” she asked, not looking up from her phone as Eros had Percy shrug the jacket off so he could examine the fit of the shirt. “Do you like Indian food?”

“Y...es?” Percy turned to look at her, and was promptly skewered in the side with a stick pin. “Ow!”

“When I say _don’t move_ , I mean it,” Eros said sweetly.

Kym took a few steps around to be back in his line of sight and grinned. “Then I have the perfect place to go for lunch.” She turned to examine a rack of silk ties arranged by color, frowning thoughtfully.

“Alright, you’re free,” Eros said, all but pushing Percy off the box. Percy hit the floor with a thump and stumbled to regain his footing.

“Hey, Percy, c’mere a second.” Percy shuffled up beside her, eyeing the ties. “Pick one.”

He frowned, studying the display, before shrugging. “I dunno. My English teacher has some really cool ties - he’s got like, one that looks like the science officer uniform from Star Trek, and another one that’s got these little jellyfish all over.”

“Aah, so you’re a novelty tie kinda kid,” Kym grinned. “Fear not, I have just the place in mind for you.”

Eros made an _of COURSE he is_ kind of noise behind them, and Kym turned and flipped a pen at him so it landed squarely against his temple. Percy snickered, and Kym refused to be sorry at all.

* * *

 

The Olympus Hotel was easily the most ornate building Percy had ever been inside. Everything was polished and glittering and just a shade too bright, and Percy couldn’t escape the feeling that he wasn’t supposed to be here. He tugged at his collar and tried not to fidget too much, but it seemed to be a losing battle.

Poseidon rubbed a quick circle into his back, his other hand cradling a champagne flute. “How’re you holding up,” he asked under the wash of chatter and music from the string quartet in the corner of the ballroom, leaning down over Percy’s shoulder.

Percy nodded, pulling his lips up in his best _Oh yeah, I’m stellar_ smile. Poseidon apparently bought it, because he smiled back, took a sip of his champagne, and scanned the room again.

“Oh boy, there’s Hera,” he sighed. “Will you be okay here for a minute? The faster I get this over with, the faster we can get out of here.”

Before Percy could really process what Poseidon was asking, he was off weaving through the crowd, leaving Percy by a wall of windows looking down onto the avenue below. Percy froze and shrunk away from the crowd, his back pressed into the cool glass. He shouldn’t be here. He _really_ shouldn’t be here.

Percy only just saw the blond blur before it nearly collided with a waiter passing only feet from him. The waiter stumbled and a pair of full champagne glasses rolled off the tray he was carrying, smashing on the ground inches from Percy’s shoes. He hopped back away from the mess, eyes wide as his head snapped up.

“ _Whoops_ , I am so sorry,” a blond kid likely no older than he was said, trying to suppress a grin that all but screamed _It’s totally my fault but no one will ever call me on it_. He grasped the waiter’s arm as if to steady him, and then turned to Percy. “Oh my god. _Oh_ my god. I’m _so_ sorry-- Oh _no_ , I got champagne _all over_ your shoes. Here, come with me, that’ll ruin the leather if we don’t do something about it.”

Percy glanced down at the dress shoes Kym had bought for him earlier that morning. In the sparkling lights from the chandelier, they were as clean as ever - not so much as a drop of champagne had landed on them. “They’re fine,” he muttered uncomfortably, letting himself be pulled along. He glanced around wildly for Poseidon, but in the crowd of rapidly passing formal wear, he was nowhere to be seen.

The blond kid pulled him out of one of the enormous double doors and into a more or less empty hallway. His mock-apologetic demeanor vanished, and he checked up and down the hallway before exhaling heavily and turning back to Percy. “I am _so_ sorry,” he said quietly, and the sincerity of it almost made Percy stumble backwards. “I just needed an excuse to get out of there so my stepmom wouldn’t come looking for me.”

“Oh, uh. Sure. I get it.” Percy rubbed the back of his neck over his collar. “It’s kinda overwhelming in there.”

He offered Percy a grateful smile and held his hand out, oddly formal. “I’m Jason, by the way. Pleased to meet you.”

“Percy,” he muttered, shaking Jason’s hand.

Jason cocked his head. “I don’t think I’ve seen you at one of these things before. Don’t tell me - you’re...Dakota’s cousin? No, not enough of an accent. Mm.” Jason snapped his fingers. “Oh! You’re a friend of Reyna’s!”

“No, and no,” Percy grimaced. He glanced back at the doors, praying at any moment Poseidon would come striding back into the hallway with a smile and a relieved _We’re free, kiddo, let’s go home._

Jason leaned forward on the balls of his feet eagerly. “You’re not Octavian’s boyfriend, are you,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper.

Percy leaned away from him. “What? _No_ , I don’t even know who Octavian _is_!”

“Tall, skinny, stringy blond hair he hasn’t cut since he was nine. He lives on the eighth floor of the hotel. Rumor has it that he still sleeps with a teddy bear.”

Percy huffed impatiently. “What’s wrong with _that_?” He knew plenty of kids with comfort objects in foster care. It was a thing, and his unspoken rule was that if a foster parent tried to mess with that, you protected that kid at all costs.

Jason looked taken aback by Percy’s irritation. “Nothing, I suppose,” he said after a second’s thought. He shrugged, apparently setting the matter aside. “But seriously, who _are_ you?”

Self-consciously, Percy shrugged. He wasn’t fond of the idea of admitting he was in the foster system to this exuberant rich kid. “I told you, I’m Percy,” he said evasively.

Jason sighed theatrically. “ _No_ , like. Who are you _here_ with?”

The doors behind them opened, and Poseidon stepped out. Percy fought the urge to hide behind him as he strolled over. “Hey, kiddo,” he smiled, “there’s one other person I need to talk to, and then we can head home, alright?” He glanced at Jason, and his smile simultaneously broadened and went a little strained at the edges. “Well, if it isn’t Jason. You’re getting tall, aren’t you?”

He nodded automatically, studying Percy with a curious expression. “Yes, sir. Hera says I’ll be taller than her in a few months if this growth spurt keeps up.”

Poseidon chuckled and squeezed Percy’s shoulder. “Well, I’m glad to see you haven’t been totally bored. Stick close though, I’ll only be five more minutes on the outside, and we should be getting you home soon anyway. How do the ribs feel?”

“Fine,” Percy said, stretching a little. Only the briefest flash of pain coursed up his left side, and he covered it with an expert smile. “I’m good, I’ll meet you out here.”

Poseidon gave Jason a polite smile and returned to the ballroom. Jason waited until the doors had closed again to fold his arms and squint. “Ribs?”

Percy grimaced. “I got hit by a car the other day.”

Jason’s eyes went wide. “ _Dude_ ,” he breathed, awestruck.

“Not as fun as it sounds,” Percy said drily. “I wouldn’t try it if I were you.”

He grinned, bright and happy. “Still. Dude. So you’re Poseidon’s, yeah? I didn’t think he had any other kids beside Triton. You’re not like, a nephew or something, right?”

“I’m not...anything,” he said vaguely, hunching his shoulders. “I’m just staying with him for a little while.”

For a brief second, Jason’s face fell, but the second Percy registered it, the smile was back like it had never wavered. “Sure, yeah. Of course. But you seem pretty cool, we should hang out sometime before you go back to-- Where _are_ you going, even?”

Percy froze for a second. “Who knows,” he managed, just narrowly breezy enough to be believable. “It depends on a lot of things.”

Jason gave a scoff of a laugh and rolled his eyes, nodding. “Been there,” he commiserated. “You got a cell phone?”

“Uh. Not with me, no.”

“Damn. Well. Um.” Jason looked around, frowning. “Wait here,” he said, before darting down the hallway.

Percy wavered between staying and slipping back into the ballroom to avoid the awkward explanation he knew was coming. His indecision lasted long enough for Jason to dart over to a waiter loitering outside the staff elevator, borrow a pen, and come jogging back, the lapels of his open suit jacket flapping around him.

“Here,” he said with a slightly breathless smile, and grabbed Percy’s hand. Percy flinched, but somehow managed to not yank his hand back. Jason grinned at him and scribbled a number on his palm. “Text me when you get home, so I have your number. And we can hang out or something, whenever. Anytime.”

Percy frowned at him, skeptical. “Don’t you go to school?”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Nah, my dad has a tutor for me. He says I’m going to some kind of weird prep school in the fall, when I hit high school, but until then Chiron handles my lessons. It’s _lame_ , because he lives with us, so it’s like I _never_ get to leave school.”

“Sounds awful,” Percy said weakly, nodding a little. It was obvious he was supposed to be at the very least sympathetic, but _private tutors?_ Of all the things to be complaining about. Percy bit down hard around his impulse to tell Jason what _real_ problems looked like.

Eyes hopeful, Jason bounced a little on his toes like a golden retriever faced with a particularly inviting tennis ball. “But we can hang out sometime, right? There’s _tons_ to do here at the hotel, I know every inch of this place. Lived here my whole life. I can show you around, yeah?”

Percy nodded noncommittally, glancing back toward the ballroom doors. _Please go away_ , part of him begged. He wasn’t used to this kind of enthusiasm - foster kids were either jaded or shell-shocked most of the time, and none of them really wanted to be friends with anyone else. Percy could handle that. _This_ was entirely different, and exhausting.

Jason chattered on about something Percy wasn’t listening to for another minute before the doors opened again. Poseidon let a tall, statue-like woman in a shimmering silver and gold dress pass before him before leading her toward the pair of boys, finishing a story he was telling. In Percy’s peripheral vision, Jason sucked in a sharp breath and turned to flee. “Nice meeting you, Percy, text me sometime,” he said in a rush before vanishing.

The woman arched one imperial eyebrow at Jason’s retreating back. “Well that was odd,” she noted drily. “For some reason, Jason is _convinced_ I don’t like him.”

“Because you _don’t_ ,” Poseidon chuckled beside her. “Percy, this is my friend Athena. Athena, Percy.”

“Oh, we’re hardly friends,” she informed Poseidon with a smile like dry ice, before turning to Percy. “So you’re the reason Poseidon picked to skip our meeting.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Percy mumbled, faintly terrified by the woman’s attention, and she laughed, her dark red lips stretching around teeth like polished white marble.

“I’m _kidding_ ,” she soothed. “It’s nice to meet you, Percy. Poseidon tells me you had a run-in with a _car_ earlier this week.”

“I’m fine,” Percy said automatically. Her eyebrow lifted again, and Percy shrugged. “Just some bruised ribs. I’m sturdy.”

“I’m sure you are,” Athena said, and even though Percy knew a patronizing adult when he heard one, he didn’t have the energy to bristle. “Well. I have a business meeting I need to see about setting up, and I would think you’d like to take your boy here home,” she said, returning her attention to Poseidon. “I’ll have my office give you a call sometime soon. Give you some options regarding rescheduling our missed appointment.”

“Can’t wait,” Poseidon said with an insincere smile. He kissed her cheek and let her walk back into the ballroom before turning to Percy. “Free at _last_ ,” he sighed, wrapping an arm around Percy’s shoulders. “I think we deserve to be rewarded with ice cream for surviving that, don’t you?”

Percy gave him a small smile and a nod, the urge to snap _I’m not anyone’s boy_ still thick in his throat.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not that anyone's still reading this or anything

The sticky strip on the back of the Post-It was rapidly losing its stickiness, with each time Piper pressed her fingertip to it and peeled it off. Lupa’s sharp handwriting scrawled a phone number parallel to the top, and underneath had written “Ask for Percy.” Piper stared at it as she held the small piece of paper in her lap. Lupa had explained that there had been a “separate incident” with Percy and he was staying with someone else until they could find him a new placement. Her and Hazel staying with Nico at the hospital was really just because they didn’t have a temporary placement for the girls, and Piper almost wanted to resent Percy for having somewhere to go. Hard plastic waiting room chairs and vending machine burritos weren’t all they were cracked up to be.

But still, Percy had been a good friend to her in the 4 months since she moved in, after the couple upstate had kicked her out  because Drew - fucking _Drew_ \- had accused her of stealing Mama Ake’s grandmother’s jewelry to pay for drugs or something. Percy helped her with her math homework and cracked jokes about assholes from school when they walked home together. And as stressed out and scared as she was, she longed for the friendly voice.

She pushed herself out of the chair and stretched, her shoulders creaking. She winced and shuffled down the hall, past the nurse’s station to the door of the room Nico was resting in. A cop with a baby face and a bored expression was leaning against the wall outside. He saw her coming and stood up. “He’s still asleep,” he warned.

“I know. Got a cell phone I can borrow?” Piper held up the sticky note with her thumb and forefinger.

His eyes went a little softer, and he dug in his pocket. “Don’t use up all my minutes, okay,” he said quietly, passing her the phone.

“Yeah, yeah. Just for a minute.” Piper smiled at him, and navigated to the phone’s dial pad on the touch screen. She typed in the number from the post-it slowly, confirming each number as she entered it. What if no one answered? Did she leave a message? What if someone answered, but Percy wasn’t around, or they wouldn’t let her talk to him? What if Percy didn’t want to talk to _her_? She took a deep breath, pushed her worries off the edge of the table, and hit the dial button.

The phone rang once before a deep, warm voice answered. “Hello?”

Piper’s heart skipped a beat. “Uh. Hi, um. My, uh, caseworker said I could call--”

“Oh, you must be Piper,” the voice interrupted, with just the faintest hint of a laugh. “I’m Poseidon, I’m the man Percy’s staying with right now. I think he’s getting ready for bed, I’m going to go check for you, okay?”

Piper slid down the wall and hit the floor with a faint thump. “Thank you,” she said, a little light-headed with relief.

“How’s Nico doing,” Poseidon asked. Piper’s brain stalled out in cagey, defensive _why do you want to know_ mode, and she took a deep breath to resettle. _He’s just making conversation,_ she told herself, _don’t blow up_.

“He’s okay. Still pretty dazed. He’s sleeping right now,” she said, pulling her knees up to her chest and resting one forearm across her kneecaps.

“That’s good,” Poseidon said, and he sounded genuinely pleased. “Would you hold on for a second?”

There was a faint rustle, like he’d pressed his phone against a t-shirt or something, and words she couldn’t quite make out. Another rustle, and Poseidon said, “One more second, he’ll be right out.”

“Thanks for letting me talk to him,” Piper said quietly.

“Of course. Percy’s pretty anxious to talk to you. Here he is, hold on.”

The phone shifted hands. “Pipes,” Percy’s voice asked.

“Percy, hey,” Piper said, and her voice didn’t wobble like she thought it was going to. “You doin’ okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. What about you, though? And Nico and Hazel? Everyone okay?”

“Yeah, everybody’s good. Nico’s gonna be here for a couple more days, they think - he’s been really super out of it since they brought him in, but he seems to be coming around. He’s asleep right now, otherwise I’d see if you could talk to him.”

Percy sighed. “I figured, yeah. But you and Hazel are good, right?”

Piper snorted. “I never thought I’d say this, but two days of eating hospital food are making me miss Auntie Em’s veggieloaf.”

Percy snickered, and Piper continued, “But yeah, me and Hazel are good. The cops interviewed her for a while earlier today, so she was kind of freaked out but I think she’s calmed down some now.”

“Is she handy, can I talk to her?”

Piper glanced up at the cop standing by the door. “I’m pretty sure she’s passed out in the waiting room. That kid can sleep anywhere.”

“Oh. Okay, yeah. Don’t wake her up,” Percy said quietly, and Piper’s gut twisted at the sad worry in his tone.

“So I hear you landed some rich guy’s apartment for a few days while Lupa wrangles a new placement for you,” Piper said, hoping to distract him. “Lucky asshole.”

“Yeah, uh. Poseidon’s pretty chill,” Percy said, carefully vague.

Piper huffed. “Come _on_ , man, I want details! I’m living vicariously through you right now, don’t freeze me out.”

Percy chuckled. “Alright, alright. Twist my arm,” he muttered good naturedly. “So, I’ve told you about Charlie, right? The dude who’s a firefighter up by the financial district?”

“Yeah, you’ve told me about him.”

“Well, we both had the day off yesterday, so he bought me lunch and we hung out. Great, awesome, I hardly ever get to see him, so I was super stoked about it, right? But when I was headed home, I was walking in front of this parking garage, and some asswipe comes swinging around the corner and clips me with his car. Doesn’t even stop for me.”

“Oh my god, are you okay?”

Percy scoffed. “Yeah, I’m good. Coupla bruised ribs, I almost had a concussion. I’ve had worse,” he said, and Piper frowned. No one ever had to explain what _worse_ really meant. “And so I’m getting up, dusting myself off, and this dude in a _super_ expensive suit comes over and helps me up. Sits me down on one of those window ledges just above sidewalk level, tells his assistant to ‘bring the car around.’ I swear, if he’d’ve had a penlight on him, he’d’ve done the whole check for a concussion routine. Dude’s crazy.”

“Well yeah, he just saw you get hit by a _car_ ,” Piper countered.

“People get hit by cars all the time, this is New York,” Percy said dismissively. “ _Anyway_. So. Dude takes me back to his place, apparently blows off a meeting or something, and calls his like, personal doctor to make a house call. Like, holy shit, right? I guess doctors do still make house calls, if you pay enough. But in the meantime, no one can get a hold of Lupa, right? Which, apparently, she was busy making sure Nico didn’t die, which is a much better thing to be doing, but I ended up spending the night with Poseidon’s _sweet_ Xfinity setup. He’s got like, the biggest TV I’ve ever seen in my _life_ , Pipes, it’s a thing of beauty. But anyway, Lupa shows up in the morning, explains the situation, thanks him for his time, blah blah blah, and dude does the _dumbest thing_. He gets this weird look on his face and asks if it’d help if I just stayed here until they can find a new placement for me. Like. Who the fuck even does that?”

“That guy, apparently,” Piper quipped. “Jesus, you get all the luck.”

“I got hit by a car, didn’t I,” Percy joked. “He, um. I think he’s gonna take me over to come see you guys during visiting hours tomorrow. At least, that’s what he said. I wouldn’t like, hold my breath or anything, but it might happen. Fingers crossed.”

“Dude, that’d be great,” Piper exclaimed, and realized belatedly how loud she’d said that. She shrunk in on herself and glanced around. The cop was looking down at her with a curious half-smile. “For serious? Tomorrow?”

“That’s what he said. I dunno. He doesn’t seem like That Guy, but who knows. We’ll see.”

“Yeah, yeah. I uh. I won’t tell Hazel until you get here, okay? No sense in disappointing her without a reason.”

“Yeah,” Percy sighed. “Is she holding up okay?”

Piper chewed her lower lip. “She’s like, I dunno. She’s worried, and doesn’t really understand a lot of what’s going on? She’s only seven, and I’m not sure _I_ understand what’s going on, to be honest. But push for the visit if you can, okay? I think seeing you not dead would help her a little.”

Percy breathed a quiet little laugh. “Yeah. I’ll do what I can. Take care of her for me, okay Pipes? As long as you can.”

“As long as I can,” she promised, and didn’t like the weight of knowing that probably wouldn’t be very long at all.

* * *

Jason had only been in Poseidon’s apartment twice - once for a dinner party he’d spent texting Reyna under the table, and another time for a last-minute business deal between his dad and Poseidon that Jason had been pretty content to ignore in favor of beating one more gym on his DS. But he remembered the address, more or less - “Do you know where the Atlantis Building on 52nd Street is,” he’d asked the cab driver as he ran his card through the meter in the backseat, and the driver had shrugged what probably was a yes before pulling back into traffic. Mercifully, the doorman recognized his last name and let him up to the penthouse when Jason lied and told him they were expecting him.

Kym answered the door when he knocked. “I wasn’t aware it was popcorn season,” she said suspiciously, moving to close the door again. Jason felt a mild wash of panic and hurried to stop her.

“No, no, I’m uh. I’m not a Boy Scout. I’m Jason Grace? Percy and I were going to hang out today?”

Kym opened the door wider, her expression trading suspicion for confusion. “Oh. I’m not sure Percy’s awake yet. It’s...really early, actually.”

Jason slid through the opening and into the apartment. “We were texting about it last night,” he lied, pulling out his most charming smile. “He said it’d be okay to come over whenever.”

Kym closed the door behind him and leaned against it, folding her arms with a knowing smirk. “Percy doesn’t _have_ a cell phone. You didn’t tell anyone you were coming over, did you.”

Jason cringed. “Okay, yeah, but only because I knew like, _everyone_ would say no if I asked!”

“Better to ask forgiveness than permission, huh,” Kym confirmed, grinning. “Alright, alright. But I’m pretty sure Percy’s still asleep, and I’m going to have to call your dad or your tutor or somebody just so no one thinks you’ve been kidnapped.”

“Can’t you just, I don’t know, wait a little while? No one will notice I’m gone for at least another two hours, I swear!”

Kym chuckled. “I’ll let Poseidon know you’re here, and we’ll let him deal with calling your dad, okay? In the meantime, if you want to wake Percy up, he’s the third door on the left down that hallway.”

Jason scooted off in the indicated direction, throwing a hasty thank you over his shoulder. He hurried to the door Kym had mentioned and hesitated. He’d never been very good at boundaries, and it was only now, standing in front of the guest bedroom door, that it occurred to him that his showing up unannounced might hurt his chances of making a friend in Percy rather than help them. _Too late to go back now_ , he told himself. He knocked quietly, and tried the handle.

The door swung open without a sound, and Jason crept into the bedroom. Percy was curled on the bed, wrapped in a burrito of a throw blanket, with the actual bed coverings more or less undisturbed underneath him. His breathing was fairly shallow, even though he was obviously asleep - he was laying like he’d been careful to find a position that wouldn’t aggravate his ribs before he went to sleep, and Jason remembered the brief, vague explanation of him getting hit by a car. _I wish my life was that interesting,_ he thought, a little sullenly jealous, and hesitated before sitting on the edge of the bed.

Percy jerked, like someone waking up from a nightmare, and twisted around to look at Jason wide-eyed. “Holy shit,” he gasped, scrambling back toward the opposite side of the bed. Jason jolted away from him as well, startled by Percy’s extreme reaction. “Dude, what the _fuck_ ,” he managed through a pained grimace.

“Sorry, sorry,” Jason said hurriedly, standing up off the edge of the bed. “I just really didn’t want to deal with my tutor today and you seem super cool and I wanted to hang out but I didn’t think you’d actually text me and I’m really not good at interacting with other people so I kind of, just. Came over? I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to scare you.”

Percy watched him warily, slowly calming down. “It’s, uh. It’s okay,” he said slowly, like he wasn’t sure it actually _was_ okay. “I don’t think I can actually hang out today, though. I’ve got, um, stuff going on.”

“That’s okay, I don’t mind just tagging along,” Jason said earnestly. “I just really don’t want to be at home today. What are you doing?”

“It’s...complicated,” he said evasively, twisting the hem of the throw blanket over his legs. Jason sat down again, trying to puzzle out his expression. “And I don’t think you’d want to come anyway, so.”

“Did...you not just hear me,” Jason said with a bemused smile. “I _just_ said I’m game for anything, as long as I don’t have to be at home. Whatever it is, I’m more than happy to tag along, if you’ll let me.”

Percy huffed. “Look, you seem like a really nice guy, but there’s...a _lot_ you don’t know, that if you _did_ know you wouldn’t want to hang out with me at all. So just. Take my word for it, and go away. Go... I don’t know, do whatever you rich people do. I don’t care. Just leave.”

Something in the sullen, bitter vagueness latched onto Jason’s attention. “That really seems like a decision I should be able to make for myself,” he said, frowning. “Whatever it is, I probably won’t care. And what do you mean, ‘ _you_ rich people’? Aren’t you Poseidon’s nephew or something?”

“I’m _not_ ,” Percy snapped, his voice tired. “Look, you wanna know the truth? I’m a stupid _foster kid_ , who got hit by a car and Poseidon happened to see the whole thing and now I’m just a damn charity case until my caseworker can find somewhere else for me to live, back in a shitty part of town where I _belong_. I’m not _like you_ , okay? I don’t have a _tutor_ or a rich dad or a private chauffeur to drive me around to bother other people way early in the mornings. So just. Go away, dude. You don’t want to be friends with me, I promise.”

Jason was silent, processing the sudden shift in what he knew of Percy. “Oh,” he said quietly. “...That, uh. That sucks. Foster care, I mean.”

Percy gave a dry, humorless laugh. “Yeah. It does suck.”

“I still want to be friends, though.”

Percy squinted at him. “Are you like, brain damaged or something?”

Jason offered a bleak little smile. “I, uh. In case you didn’t notice, I don’t exactly have a huge line of people waiting to be friends with me. I don’t even really _know_ that many people my own age. All my dad’s friends have adult kids, and I don’t go to school, so. I know like, two people who seem to kind of like me okay, and they both work at my dad’s hotel, so I don’t know, maybe they’re just contractually obligated to be nice to me. And I know, that’s like, nothing compared to anything, but the point is. I want to be friends with you, okay? And if you don’t want to be friends with me, fine, sure, I’ll leave. But just _tell_ me that, don’t try to tell me that _I_ don’t want to be friends with _you_. Because that’s not true.”

Percy was quiet for a long moment, and Jason was gearing up to accept the unspoken rejection and see himself out when Percy looked up with an awkward little smile. “Okay,” he said hesitantly.

“Okay?”

“Okay. I, uh. I move around a lot, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be gone in like a week when my next placement goes through, but if you wanna hang out until then, I’m game.”

Jason squashed the urge to hug Percy out of uncontrollable joy and settled for grinning like an idiot. “Seriously? Awesome!”

Percy smiled back, and grimaced. “Just, uh. Not today. I wasn’t lying when I said I had a kind of complicated thing going on.”

“What’s up,” Jason asked, still giddy over the lack of outright rejection. “I’m good with tagging along, I don’t mind at all.”

Percy winced. “I, uh. At my last foster home? My foster mom was, um, poisoning one of the other kids. Which is why I’m here, actually, or part of the reason anyway. But the other three kids are at the hospital, and Poseidon’s taking me over to go see them today. I’m pretty sure he is. He said he was going to.”

Jason’s eyes went wide. “Dude,” he said, almost reverently. “I mean, I still don’t mind going, but if you don’t want me there, I understand.”

Percy shrugged. “I dunno, man. It’s gonna be awkward as hell, probably. Nico like, almost died a couple days ago, and the girls are probably gonna be a mess so I mean, if you feel like dealing with a 6 year old crying on one of us, that’s on you.”

“I don’t care,” Jason said earnestly. “Anything’s better than Latin lessons.”

Percy pulled a face. “Oh yeah, your life is so hard,” he muttered, only a little mocking as he unwound his legs from the blanket and shuffled out of bed.

A knock on the door startled them both. Poseidon was leaning against the doorframe with a curious little smile. “Cutting class today, Jason,” he asked.

Jason ducked his head a little, trying to come up with a good lie on the spot.

“I invited him to come with me to the hospital today, if we’re still going,” Percy said smoothly from the other side of the bed. Jason’s head snapped around, and Percy was standing there folding his blanket like everything was going exactly according to plan. “I thought Piper could use a distraction, and she’d like Jason.”

Poseidon raised an eyebrow, but let it go. “Of course we’re still going. It’s getting me out of a really long and boring meeting I don’t want to go to. Your dad doesn’t know where you are, does he, Jason?”

“He doesn’t care,” Jason muttered, a little stunned by the resentment in his own voice. “And Chiron won’t notice I’m missing for another few hours, and I left a note.”

Poseidon chuckled. “When your dad called you a hellion, he wasn’t kidding,” he said with a little reluctant pride. “Let me know when you’re ready to go, we can get breakfast on the way to the hospital.”

Percy nodded, leaving his neatly folded blanket on the end of the bed and heading toward the closet. “Just give me a second,” he said as Poseidon left. He grabbed a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that still had a tag on it.

Jason hopped up off the bed. “Oh, uh. I’ll just--”

Percy raised an eyebrow. “Stay, don’t stay, I don’t care.”

“Don’t you want privacy while you change?”

Percy snorted. “Privacy,” he scoffed, like it was the most frivolous thing he’d ever heard, and kicked his pajama pants off. “You try finding _privacy_ in an overcrowded group home with twenty minutes until the bus shows up.”

Jason jolted around so he was facing away from Percy, blinking at the floor between his shoes. “How do you _live_ ,” he asked, stunned.

“Like this,” Percy quipped, grabbing a pair of new sneakers as he pulled a long-sleeved t-shirt down over his hips. “This girl I knew from my first foster home used to say it was like Broadway costume changes. The quicker you change, the quicker you can get on with your life. The furnace being broken offers a great encouragement to learn to be fast, too.”

“Jesus,” Jason muttered.

Percy offered him a quick, sharp-edged grin. “You get used to it,” he explained, pulling his sneakers on and tying the laces against the edge of the bed. “Come on, I don’t want to keep Piper waiting. I wasn’t lying when I said she’ll probably really like you.”


End file.
